New Tapes Pump Fresh Life into Radiagate

Public ire and interest over the Niira Radia phone tap recordings leaked in mid-November appeared to have hit saturation point. Then, on Saturday, Outlook magazine announced that it had another 800 of the almost 6,000 recordings made by the Indian government of conversations between Ms. Radia, a corporate lobbyist, and journalists, politicians, businessmen and others.

After the stir created by the initial 100-plus tapes from a wiretap investigation that an Indian official has said is linked to the inquiry into the mismanaged allocation of second-generation spectrum to telecom companies in 2008, these don't appear to be quite as explosive.

The two brothers were in litigation over the price at which the elder Mr. Ambani should supply gas to Anil Ambani from an offshore exploration site. The case was ultimately decided in favor of Mukesh Ambani by India's Supreme Court in May.

Mr. Sanghvi tells Ms. Radia the piece is "dressed up as a plea to [Indian Prime Minister] Manmohan Singh so it won't look like an inter-Ambani battle thing except to people in the know." She responds: "Very nice."

In another conversation, between Ms. Radia and an employee, she asks for questions to be prepared for an interview between Mr. Sanghvi and Mukesh Ambani, saying that "he has agreed to ask whatever questions we suggest."

Mr. Sanghvi couldn't immediately be reached for comment. Spokesmen for the two Ambanis did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Ms. Radia's firm also did not immediately comment on Sunday.

What else is on the tapes?

We learn that Ms. Radia's ringtone at the time was the romantic ditty "Pal Pal Har Pal" from the Bollywood movie "Lage Raho Munnabhai" and that she appears to be quite deeply religious. We already knew that one of her PR firms is named "Vaishnavi," or "worshipper of Vishnu." In one of the tapes she talks of an upcoming pilgrimage to the Vaishno Devi shrine in Jammu and Kashmir state, a site she says she has often visited.

At a particularly stressful moment in the 2009 Cabinet formation process, (we know from the tapes the interest Ms. Radia took in who got what appointments) she and a woman she is speaking to make offers to pray for one another, and it sounds like they mean it. At other times she makes predictions based on her astrological readings.

But perhaps what's most interesting about the tapes is that they confirm Ms. Radia's Dubya-like view of the world. When it comes to journalists, if they're not with her (and her clients), they're against her. If journalists write something other than what she wanted or discussed with them, she is immediately certain they've been co-opted by the other side.'

In one recording, because of a headline, she talks of the Delhi bureau of a newspaper as having fallen under the control of her client's rivals, while the Bombay bureau seems to be all right. But, in another recording, a call from a reporter from the same paper makes her think it is the Bombay bureau that has gone to the other side.

It's not a world view that allows for the possibility that sometimes, just sometimes, reporters and editors might put out a particular story a particular way because of their own reporting or analysis, rather than because they're in one camp or another. Unfortunately, that's probably a view that many more members of the Indian public now subscribe to than ever before.